A comparative study between two different techniques of solar integrated systems

A comparative study between two techniques of solar integration in Integrated Solar Combined Cycle system power plant in terms of thermal performances and economic assessment is carried out in this work. The first system power plant is based on parabolic trough collector technology where solar heat is introduced in the steam power block as a latent heat and the second system runs with a solar power tower technology. The latter integrates solar thermal energy as a sensible heat to heat up the flue gases from the gas turbine till the fired temperature before entering the heat recovery steam generator. Thermodynamic investigations show high thermal performance for both thermal power plants, but the system plant with solar tower exhibits the best annual performances efficiency value of about 57.2%. Furthermore, in terms of solar conversion to electricity, the plant based on solar tower reveals noticeable enhancements; almost constant values during the year of about 20.8% have been registered. In terms of economic analysis, both power plants show approximately the same Levelized cost of energy of 0.0395 $/kWh and 0.0355 $/kWh for the plant based solar tower and that based parabolic collector respectively.